


One Which Makes the Heart Hop Over

by TwinTwain



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Character Study, Drabbles, F/M, Gen, One-Shots, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-29 20:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6392929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwinTwain/pseuds/TwinTwain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judy/Nick drabbles, one-shots, and character studies.</p><p>Chapter Two: An Offer He Can't Refuse Part 1</p><p>It started on a Tuesday. Or maybe it actually started before Tuesday, and it just took him a while to notice. That might just be his imagination though—once you start looking for something in hindsight, it's dangerously easy to start seeing hints that never really existed in the first place. To assign meanings between the lines instead of read between them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Home

“Carrot for your thoughts?” She asks, voice soft with an undercurrent of something he can't place.

“Hmm...make it a blueberry and you've got a deal.”

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms, thumping her foot three times in quick succession. It's one of her many tells—this one in particular signifying annoyance.

He lets her stew for another couple seconds, waiting until...ah, _there_ it is. The tell tale nose twitching. Of all her mannerisms, it's one of his favorites. So much so that sometimes he can't help but tease her a little to provoke it.

If he's honest with himself (and there are two people he is _always_ honest with nowadays, both of them currently in this very room), he's partly just stalling for time. His thoughts and feelings are all over the place in the wake of this little surprise, and he needs a moment to pin them down.

For the first twelve years of his life, his mother's house had been his house. Once she'd...gone...his house had gone with her, but he hadn't missed it. There was a large difference between being houseless, and being homeless. The loss of a house was of little consequence—it was a place to sleep, a container to keep possessions. The loss of a home, on the other hand...that was tragic. Because, to Nick, home is the people he loves. Home was his mother, and that's what he's been missing for the last twenty years.

The apartment she's found for him is nice, with the added bonus of being only three minutes away from her own (he has a sneaking suspicion she chose this place in particular with that in mind). But whether he's in a nice apartment or a box under a bridge...it doesn't really _matter._

He already has what does.

“Well?” She huffs. Despite her irritated countenance, her eyes are hopeful.

He smiles because, in the end, it's actually very simple. “Feels like home.”

His eyes never leave her.


	2. An Offer He Can't Refuse Part 1

It started on a Tuesday. Or maybe it actually started before Tuesday, and it just took him a while to notice. That might just be his imagination though—once you start looking for something in hindsight, it's dangerously easy to start seeing hints that never really existed in the first place. To _assign_ meanings between the lines instead of _read_ between them.

Paranoia can do that to a person.

In any case, he'd noticed it on Tuesday. Judy had shown up to the precinct, looking markedly less upbeat than normal. Or, if it had been a gradual change, it was finally at the point where the scales had tipped enough for his acutely trained detective sense to realize something was off.

Or to put it in a more straightforward—meaning, in this case, _truthful_ —way: he'd noticed her ears were a little droopy.

“Something got you down, Carrots?” He had asked, nonchalant. Not even a sliver of his concern slipped through.

She'd shrugged, hopping up into her chair and pulling out a few unfinished arrest reports from the day before.

“I'm just feeling a bit...off.”

“How so?” The short stacks of paper in her 'to do' box never ceased to fill him with envy. He has no idea why he always seems to have double or triple the amount of paperwork she does.

...Although it might have something to do with all the complaints he gets. Not from citizens, but the criminals. He has the tendency to make fun of them while arresting them.

She'd tapped her pencil absentmindedly against her desk, and he'd recognized the rhythm as belonging to Gazelle's latest hit. “Just...girl stuff.”

 _Ooooooooh_ no. He wasn't touching that conversation with a ten foot pole.

“Why don't you go have a talk with Benjy about it? He's a great listener _and_ he gives great advice. Francine swears by him.”

She had paused, turning to him with a smile. “Good idea. I think I'll go pay him a visit.”

It really _was_ a good idea, he'd thought to himself.

Except in all the ways it turned out not to be.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Twenty minutes later she had returned looking deep in thought. This had continued throughout the rest of the day, which turned out to be rather uneventful. In retrospect this should have worried him—he and Judy never had an uneventful day. For whatever reason, the two of them seemed to always get stuck with a constant stream of unusual cases. If Bogo were the vindictive kind, he might suspect the Chief of purposefully giving them difficult assignments as payback for the headaches they regularly inflict on him. But Bogo doesn't care enough about _anything_ to put extra effort like that in, so he's sure it's just the universe's way of messing with them.

Instead of being suspicious, he just enjoyed the first day of rest he'd had since becoming a ZPD officer. As it turns out, he ends up needing that stress free day.

Because the next one is anything _but_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for a mini-story!

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies to James Boswell for hijacking part of a wonderful quote and using it as the title of a story that ships two animated characters. Full quote is below, as it really is lovely and one of my all time favorites.
> 
> "We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over."


End file.
